Hanni was a 5-year old Greek land tortoise who lived with an Austrian/American family in a small village in eastern Austria. In the summer when it was warm she lived in a suitable habitat outside, with places to hide and little hilly bits to climb up and down and a flat place to eat and a mesh wire roof to keep out birds and cats and other predators, and in the winter and on other days when it was cold she lived in the office inside the family’s house.

In fact, Hanni spent most of her time inside the house, either in the office or in a box in the cellar when she was hibernating, which she did about half the year.

In the office she had a couple hiding places under the desk, and she also enjoyed it in the space underneath the chest of drawers.

One year, Hanni awoke from hibernation and it was still too cold for her to go outside so the family put her in the office as usual. She tried to crawl under the chest of drawers but couldn’t anymore because she’d grown and she no longer fit but she kept trying, her little leathery clawed feet going “scritch-scritch-scritch” on the parquet floors, her shell “bump-bump-bumping” against the chest of drawers.

So she gave up and walked around the office, rolling wilted lettuce leaves into little doobie shapes by walking over them and rolling them up with her shell. Sometimes she’d high-center on one and get stuck and someone would have to lift her off, otherwise she’d stay in one place for hours, scritch-scritching.

One day, after several days of heavy eating (lots of dandilions and lettuce and little pellets made of ground up meal worms from the pet store) Hanni took a massive shit while butting up against the chest of drawers, trying to force her way underneath again.

The shit lay there, in the form of a large, soft black turd and while walking back and forth – scritch-scritch – Hanni stepped in it and did a Jackson Pollack with it all across about four square feet of parquet floor. Then she went back under the desk and tucked her leathery little head back into her shell and waited for it to dry to an incredibly hard mess.

After the black tortoise shit Jackson Pollack mess had dried to an incredibly hard mess, the family’s mom found it and made the dad go clean it up, which he did with about half a roll of paper towels and an unhappy look on his face. Not long after this, Hanni got to go outside into her little habitat.